J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1834 > Edinburgh Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Bridge over the Yarrow Water at Dryhope or Yarrow, Selkirkshire; and Ramsgate 1834

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Bridge over the Yarrow Water at Dryhope or Yarrow, Selkirkshire; and Ramsgate’ 1834
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 31 Verso:
Bridge over the Yarrow Water at Dryhope or Yarrow, Selkirkshire; and Ramsgate 1834
D26155
Turner Bequest CCLXVIII 31a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 181 mm
Inscribed in pencil; by Turner ‘Ramsgate’ bottom
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main sketch across this page of a landscape with hills and a bridge was made in the Yarrow Valley in Selkirkshire. The bridge is likely to be either near the source of the Yarrow Water at St Mary’s Loch near Dryhope (see folio 31; D26154), or a little further east at the village of Yarrow (folio 34; D26160).
Turner later utilised the space at the bottom left of the page for a small sketch of the Kent town of ‘Ramsgate’. Sketches scattered throughout this sketchbook depict views of the east coast of England from the sea, suggesting that the artist returned from Scotland by sea. His visit to Kent, however, may have been made by steamboat from the Thames on a later occasion. There are further sketches of the Thames Estuary and the coast of Kent on folio 2 verso (D26098).
This view shows the entrance to the harbour with a lighthouse at the left and the rounded end of the pier at the right. In the town beyond is the outline of St George’s Church. Ramsgate was familiar to Turner from several previous visits. A sketch in the Hastings to Margate sketchbook, 1815–16, has a similar composition to the present sketch (Tate D10576; Turner Bequest CXL 85), as does a sketch in the Gravesend and Margate sketchbook, 1832, (Tate D27339; Turner Bequest CCLXXIX 39).

Thomas Ardill
January 2011

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Bridge over the Yarrow Water at Dryhope or Yarrow, Selkirkshire; and Ramsgate 1834 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-bridge-over-the-yarrow-water-at-dryhope-or-yarrow-r1136083, accessed 26 April 2024.